Verno wrote on Nov 1, 2012, 13:03:I disagree that they made it clear, I think they went out of their way to obfuscate it at times. Their Kickstarter page had claims like "We working on bringing you games like Call of Duty*!" and such on it. Games like Final Fantasy III**. They weren't outright deceiving people but they were certainly playing on expectations. This is assuming they actually manage to ship the thing in the promised timeline (March 2013 IIRC).

That said when backing a kickstarter people should do some research first and always be cautious so I won't exactly feel sympathy for people who were expecting anything other than something that will run Android apps/games and emulate some old consoles.

* Call of Duty not actually available** The shitty NES $15 Android one that no one cares about

Yeah, I can't feel sorry for anyone that hasn't learned that asterisks (actual or implied) are important and that they should read the fine print. If you don't know that you're rolling the dice with a Kickstarter, then you just aren't paying attention.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Beamer wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 23:35:Traders, not investment bankers. They're different things. That was the whole point of what started this line of conversation.

Investment bankers: deal solely with companies and actual assets. If a company wants to get more liquid they guide a company through selling assets or debts. If a company is too liquid they guide a company through expanding or buying another company. They actually buy and sell things that exist in more than just paper (though debt is just paper, they deal with it by having a company issue it, not telling them to buy it.)

Traders: deal with less tangible assets. They're the guys that buy pork bellies low and sell high, all within fractions of a second.

One of those actually adds value to an economy. The other just keeps turning things around that it never actually owns. One of those was involved in this crisis. The other has nothing to do with it.They are not the same thing and the term is not interchangeable.

I understand that traders and investment bankers do different things, but the big banks are all investment banks, and they all employed traders to do what they did with the sub-prime securities and derivatives. That's the sense that I'm talking about and why I said it's really picking nits when they all work for the same investment banks. The banks were responsible, even if they had other employees doing more useful and non-fraudulent things.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Beamer wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 08:52:Traders, not bankers. Investment bankers had nothing to do with this entire crisis. For some reason our media, and therefore population, seems to think investment bankers and traders are the same people doing the same thing. One is never in a position, really, to do any wrong-doing, the other can totally blow things up every single second. One works for clients, the other works for greed.

I strongly disagree. The investment bankers were making a killing on selling the packaged mortgages. I've heard mortgage lenders testify how people from Wall Street called them looking for more and more loans to buy up so they could package them. It was greed on both ends. The mortgage lenders making the loans and selling them to the Wall Street guys, who turned around and packed them up and sold them.

Those were traders, not investment bankers.

Picking at nits here really. Traders working for all the big investment banks, who were all up to their eyeballs in this business and had entire units dedicated to it.

I hate PC gamers. They just sit around, hunched over their mouse, clicking away at their FarmVille or their MafiaWars or their other random Zynga game.

See the difference? Two may be similar, from the outside, and they may be part of the same machine, but they do vastly different things and have no real contact with each other.

What are you talking about? The biggest investment banks in the country were doing this. They directed their employees to do this. How are they not responsible for doing this?

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 16:24:You can't spend your way out of a recession, you let the market correct itself which it would if politicians would allow it to rather than print money like it's going out of style further devaluing said money.

This wasn't true for the great depression and it isn't true now between Junior and Obama's spend spend spend til the cows come home mentality.

I think you need to check history on that one. Granted the situation is much worse this time around than any other recession since the big one, but cutting government spending would have resulted in more unemployment, higher welfare needs, less tax revenue to the government, and therefore greater deficits anyway. We're going to have deficits either way. The GOP should have gotten out of the way and allowed more infrastructure spending to be done (which Romney now claims to support... this week anyway). Infrastructure has to be maintained, and there's no better time to invest in it than when you need the jobs anyway, and borrowing is about as cheap as could possibly be. Then, as we come out of the recession, we have better infrastructure, an economy generating more jobs and creating more revenue for the government, which can pay down the debt.

We still need cuts and we still need tax reform. I think tax reform could be a nice overall boost for the economy if it can be dramatically simplified, but it's a tricky thing to do well. Of course then you'll probably have a ton of out of work tax attorneys and tax preparation folks, but someone always gets the short end.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 16:24:I have zero issue with raising taxes, but on the same hand in order to bring the deficit down and actually have a budget (something else Obama's ongoingly failed to have since day 1) you're not going to go anywhere.

Again, what's with this "Obama failed to" stuff? He came into a recession like we've never seen before, and the projections from economists that we were seeing at the time turned out to be too optimistic (which is really saying something, because those predictions were pretty dire already). So yeah, he didn't right the budget yet because to do so would kill the recovery.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 16:24:Personally I would rather see government get the fuck out of health care period, all they're going to do is fuck it up more and pass the costs onto us. You know this, I know this, Obama and Mittens know this.

We, as a country, refuse to simply throw people out into the streets when they are sick and need care. So like Romney says, they can call an ambulance and go to the emergency room. They'll likely get hit with a bill they couldn't pay in their lifetime, but that doesn't matter, because the rest of us end up paying those costs. It's the most retardedly expensive way to provide health care, but that's how we do it right now.

Obamacare cuts these payments to hospitals, as well as forcing insurance companies to take people with pre-existing conditions. This was ok with both groups because the hospitals wouldn't get nearly as many uninsured patients showing up, and the insurance companies would get millions of new customers. It's a start towards bringing overall health care costs down rather than continuing to pay vastly more than the rest of the developed world while only getting moderately better outcomes in some cases, and the same or worse outcomes in a lot of cases.

Romney knows this. He did basically the same thing in Mass. But since the issue was radioactive during the primaries, he had to pretend that he doesn't know why Mass went with that plan, but that for some weird reason it works. It just suddenly makes no sense to him.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 16:24:The GOP proposed cuts as well, the problem is the two parties can't agree on what to cut and how much due to completely opposite ideologies. That's where they need to meet in the middle and compromise, something I'm not sure is even in Obama's vocab.

I know they proposed cuts. That's all they proposed. It's not even so much that they can't agree on what to cut. It's that the GOP refused to accept any revenue increase at all (even closing tax loopholes, etc). The issue is that the GOP wants everything their way or no way. They were, after all, willing to do this sequestration deal rather than give an inch on revenues.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 16:24:I'm with you, I'd like to hear exactly what Romney's plan entails as well but I still find it better than the alternative of 20 trillion in debt and nothing to show for it after another 4 year Obama term. Because honestly, what do we have to show now? More debt, the same level of unemployment (more if you count those who just gave up looking) and very little progress on anything important that Obama said he would do.

I'd first like to know what Obama said he would do that you thought was important. Then maybe we can go from there. Of course unemployment is higher than it was. Jobs were still in free-fall when he took office and didn't bottom-out until later. It's definitely recovering though, and any shouting from the GOP about it being too slow is just utterly shameless.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 16:24:Look I realize he came in during the biggest fiancial crisis since the great depression but it's been 4 years now since he took office. Time to stop blaming the last administration and take some damn responsibility.

And that's the biggest cop-out of the entire GOP message. It's like we decide to race, and then I shoot you in the leg. When you can't keep up, I tell you to quit whining about things that happened 5 minutes ago and just accept that you can't beat me. It's complete bullshit, but for some reason right-wingers buy into it.

The economy is recovering. All indicators are showing that. You just don't come out of a recession that deep in four years. Especially with all the crap going on in the rest of the world. So no, that's not actually an argument. It's the GOP trying to pretend that the world began when Obama took office and nothing before matters, and they had nothing to do with it. Just watch how Romney always refers to job losses or other statistics starting 4 years ago, not mentioning that the same indicators had already plummeted off the cliff during the previous administration. It's completely dishonest, which is why I don't believe Romney won't go right back to the same policies that got us into the mess in the first place. Since he seems to have forgotten anything before 2009.

This comment was edited on Oct 30, 2012, 18:03.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Beamer wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 08:52:Traders, not bankers. Investment bankers had nothing to do with this entire crisis. For some reason our media, and therefore population, seems to think investment bankers and traders are the same people doing the same thing. One is never in a position, really, to do any wrong-doing, the other can totally blow things up every single second. One works for clients, the other works for greed.

I strongly disagree. The investment bankers were making a killing on selling the packaged mortgages. I've heard mortgage lenders testify how people from Wall Street called them looking for more and more loans to buy up so they could package them. It was greed on both ends. The mortgage lenders making the loans and selling them to the Wall Street guys, who turned around and packed them up and sold them.

Those were traders, not investment bankers.

Picking at nits here really. Traders working for all the big investment banks, who were all up to their eyeballs in this business and had entire units dedicated to it.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:Clinton set the ball rolling on the housing collapse, Bush got the blame since it happened on his watch. Bush alone didn't cause the financial meltdown but any liberal will tell you it was him and him alone. The democrat party had control of both the the House and Senate, starting January 4th, 2007 they didn't seem to have much issue with Bush's policies at the time either but soley trying to blame the recession on Junior is flat out rediculous.

Where did I solely blame it on GWB? Some of the deregulation was passed by the Republican congress and signed by Clinton, and some was passed on a bipartisan basis, so I do think that both share some blame for it, but I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "Clinton set the ball rolling on the housing collapse". Maybe you could clarify.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:Like I said, I'm no cheerleader for Mittens, but Obama gives me a strong impression that he flat out won't get anything done in a positive manner, he refuses to work with republicans then blames them for not working with him, while he signs another executive order to get his way.

Umm... are you even aware of what the GOP said when Obama took office? They flat out stated that they were going to try to prevent him from getting anything done, and that their number one goal was to make sure that he fails and doesn't get a second term. Oh, and let's not forget all the Tea Party folks who came in and flat refuse to compromise on practically anything. So who's not willing to work together again?

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:Rather than talk about ways to cut spending, he peddles nationalized heathcare and shit like his "Julia" pitch, government handholding from cradle to grave.

Nationalized health care? What planet do you live on? How exactly is it nationalized? Do you even know what that means?

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:He apparently didn't get the memo that our spending is going to bankrupt us. Which is a memo the republicans neither seem to have gotten. And really, robbing Peter to pay Paul via wealth redistribution isn't an answer unless you seriously cut spending.

Actually, when you're faced with a recession, especially one as severe as this one, deficit spending is exactly what you have to do to get the economy started again. Yes, we need to pay it down later, but saying that right now is the time to eliminate the deficit is just crazy. Do that and watch the economy sink right back into recession.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:The whole idea if the rich just pay a little bit more it'll balance out is bullshit. The rich could be taxed 100% of their income and it still wouldn't cover even a half of the spending the pigs in DC keep pushing.

This I actually agree with, but it also misses the point. The point being that the tax increases on the wealthy are just a part of the solution. The Dems have proposed a lot of cuts as well, but the Republicans refused and demanded only cuts and no revenue increases. It's not realistic. It's going to do too much damage and the folks in the middle (who already saw their incomes stagnate for the past 10+ years) and at the bottom who are going to feel the brunt of the pain. Not only that, but it will also ensure that those folks have a much harder time improving their situation, getting an education, getting decent food, etc. It's not going to hurt jobs, we've seen far higher taxes in the past and still had a strong economy. We've got a lot of debt incurred under Bush, along with the debt incurred trying to get out of the recession, that we need to pay down, and we can only do that if the economy recovers.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:If Romney has a plan to create substainable jobs, give him the chance to do so, and if he's serious about cutting spending that's far more talking about cuts than I've heard out of the Obmessiah's mouth.

I'd like to hear Romney's plan, but so far he doesn't seem to have one. He talks a lot about he's going to cut taxes, maintain war-time military spending, and get rid of loopholes and deductions to pay for all that, but has so far refused to even propose anything. All this despite his yapping about Obama's lack of leadership in working with Congress. He just expects them to put a plan together apparently with no real guidance from him? Has he met congress?

Obama has offered a lot of cuts, 3 or 4 to 1 cuts to revenue, but has been rebuffed each time. So, according to Romney, he has a better plan for the economy and a better plan for health care, but doesn't actually lay out those plans. His campaign did at least correct him that his health care plan won't actually cover pre-existing conditions, so we'll continue to see most of the same problems that we've been seeing for decades now. I really don't see him fixing anything that's going to matter. He's mostly just trying to follow the GOP line of repealing Obamacare, but doesn't have any better ideas for what to replace it with.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 13:13:At the end of the day it's voting for the lesser of the two evils and granted it's only my opinion but Romney seems to be the lesser of the two this go around.

Romney has so been twisted by the primaries and trying to keep his base with him that he's gone off the deep end and can't do what's actually needed, but has to pursue pleasing the right-wing bumper sticker crowd instead. That's going to spell disaster for us.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Wowbagger_TIP wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 11:14:Keep dragging that apology tour line out, even though it's been debunked all over the place. America has done some lousy things, some of which have come back to bite us in the ass, and some have just caused problems for others. Anyone that believes Romney's line about America not dictating to other countries is just plain ignorant. We've both dictated to and freed other countries. It's not an either-or situation.

No we've certainly done that more than once. However you seem to forget how quickly Obama has run to the UN for help anytime he faces opposition, which seems to be alot of the time.

The UN thinking they're an authority on anything aside from passing weak sanctions that they don't follow through on most of the time is pretty humorous.

The UN is often quite useless, but is also one of the only ways to get other countries to take on some of the burden of intervening all over the world. Unless we want to be stuck footing the bill in blood and treasure for every action that needs to be taken, then we have to work with the UN.

You might want to bear in mind that we really don't do anything in the world militarily that isn't in our own interests. Other countries are much the same, and our interests will often not line up with the other security council members. So we end up either going it alone and taking the cost on ourselves, or we try to convince others to go with us. Of course clusterfucks like Iraq make getting others to follow us difficult too.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 12:05:For a president who uses the phrase "Let me be clear" on a regular basis, he hasn't been very clear on much of anything, in fact his administration has been one of the least transparent in the history of the US.

He's continued most of the same policies on transparency that the previous administration had. How come Republicans weren't screaming about them then? I don't like it, but I find it rather ridiculous for the right to complain now.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 12:05:If there's anything he actually is clear about it's consistantly giving forth the message that he wants more government oversite over everything, and folks like you still planning to give him another 4 years to drive our debt further into the abyss simply because there's a D in front of his name drives me crazy.

This argument makes no sense. We had 10 years of Republican rule that lead up to the financial crisis which drove the economy into the ground. Anyone who's paid any attention knows that you don't get out of a recession by cutting deficits. The focus of the right on that is just laughable. GWB runs up deficits and only a few financial hawks on the right even make a peep about it. He puts 2 wars, a prescription drug benefit and a huge tax cut on the national credit card, and nobody in the GOP balks. Then, all the deregulation and lack of oversight of the mortgage and banking industries catches up with us and NOW you want to bitch about deficits??? It's fucking crazy land over on the right!

While the right isn't alone in responsibility for the crisis, they sure lead the way. To spend a decade decimating the oversight of these industries and then bitch about how Obama hasn't fixed everything in four years is just so outrageous that I can't take anything they say seriously. So even though I really don't like a lot of the things that Obama has done, I just can't stomach the crap Romney is peddling.

I definitely can't vote for someone who won't even acknowledge the mistakes of the past, as they are destined to repeat them.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 30, 2012, 12:05:I have little love for Mittens, but at the end of the day, I want someone as president who at least has successfully run a business, not some community orginizer, from what is likely the most corrupt state in the union.

Running a company bears almost no real relation to running a country. All these comparisons between the national budget and your checkbook or your corporate bottom line are not valid, as has been explained plenty of times. Given the shit we've seen companies do, and get away with, I'm really not sure it's even a net benefit on his resume.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Axis wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 12:17:If most people honestly think it's the lesser of two "evils", I cant imagine anything more evil than murdering unborn children, so there's that.

Axis,

You are a puppet. You have allowed those who would have control over you to believe that this one issue is more important than almost anything else, and that the "others" hold a view that is morally opposite. This is a lie. They feed you lies through every facet of your life. From television to family, friends and trusted mentors. Even though the subject may have no effect on your life and livelihood, they will make it an issue of paramount importance.

Why? So they can control you. To make sure that you never give power to someone else, even if that someone else is trying to fight for you. Stop allowing others to tell you what you should think.

Let's realistically look at which party tends to want more government oversite and kowtows to the UN on a regular basis. Oh what was that? Did you say democrats? If so you'd be correct. Hell if Obama's apologize for America tour didn't teach you anything I feel a little bad for you.

Keep dragging that apology tour line out, even though it's been debunked all over the place. America has done some lousy things, some of which have come back to bite us in the ass, and some have just caused problems for others. Anyone that believes Romney's line about America not dictating to other countries is just plain ignorant. We've both dictated to and freed other countries. It's not an either-or situation.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Beamer wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 23:55:Yeah, the rating companies made asses of themselves. Ignoring the fraud, everyone basically did what they were supposed to. They made bets. Terrible bets.

The rating companies saying they were safe bets despite not understanding them is pretty poor. Sure, traders also didn't understand them, but they thought they'd be good, and it wasn't their job to rate them, just make them, as trading is always betting.

Ultimately though, Congress made the laws that allowed this to happen (or they enabled it through deregulation like the CFMA). They turned over the reigns to the banks to essentially make their own rules. No wonder they're the only ones that come out on top after all is said and done.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Beamer wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 20:40:I sadly worked for a subprime mortgage company in the early 2000s. One of the better ones, sadly. No one was forcing anyone to give those loans, in fact the companies were bending over backwards. Did your numbers not work? We fired one sales manager for advising his loan officer to advise his customer to photoshop his pay stubs. That guy was rehired at a much bigger company in under a week.

No, everyone wanted to give bad loans (and, incidentally, get bad loans.) The thought was that everything would be consolidated, sold off in a package, and probably work out for the best. If not, well, by that point it was someone else's problem.

As it turned out, it was all of our problem. Pretty much everyone deserves blame here. Bankers. Loan officers. Borrowers. Bill Clinton. George Bush.

Don't forget Congress. Aside from the Bankers, who sure as hell should have known better, they are the most guilty. Banks are supposed to do the underwriting and not tell people they can afford more than they actually can, but I had that happen when I was looking for a house. Thankfully I had the sense to go with what I knew I could afford, and get a regular 30yr fixed mortgage, but a lot of banks were just telling people what they wanted to hear. That homes are a great investment and that they'll just keep going up in value, so it's no problem, and we've got this cool new type of mortgage so you can have affordable payments, etc.

It was fraud, fueled by greed, plain and simple, but a lot of people were too ignorant about finance and/or too greedy to care, so they signed for those stupid loans. Probably why Congress was so quick to bail out the banks too, as they were largely responsible for the laws that allowed it to happen. Of course they still caved to the banks afterwards and made sure to water down and stonewall all the reforms so that they banks stay fat and happy and still legally allowed to continue screwing with the economy.

Maybe the investment bankers should have, but they didn't. They didn't know better. Their models were too complex and faulty. And no one really knew.

But banks weren't underwriting these, subprime mortgage companies were. New regulations started originators, who would do the loan themselves then sell them. If no one would buy they loan they'd put them into scratch-and-dent, meaning they'd package a whole bunch of bad loans together and sell them off. Odds were only a small amount would foreclose. Turns out most did.

Yeah, you're right that they probably didn't actually know what was going on, at least not until it was too late. But everyone was doing things that were dumb and/or outright fraud. Either by duping the lendees, or by duping investors, or by duping ratings agencies, etc. Everyone thought they could make it someone else's problem. A lot of those packages were full of terrible loans and were still given AAA ratings and sold off as such. They were making so much money off of it that nobody cared. They just wanted their fat bonuses and someone else could deal with the fallout.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Beamer wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 20:40:I sadly worked for a subprime mortgage company in the early 2000s. One of the better ones, sadly. No one was forcing anyone to give those loans, in fact the companies were bending over backwards. Did your numbers not work? We fired one sales manager for advising his loan officer to advise his customer to photoshop his pay stubs. That guy was rehired at a much bigger company in under a week.

No, everyone wanted to give bad loans (and, incidentally, get bad loans.) The thought was that everything would be consolidated, sold off in a package, and probably work out for the best. If not, well, by that point it was someone else's problem.

As it turned out, it was all of our problem. Pretty much everyone deserves blame here. Bankers. Loan officers. Borrowers. Bill Clinton. George Bush.

Don't forget Congress. Aside from the Bankers, who sure as hell should have known better, they are the most guilty. Banks are supposed to do the underwriting and not tell people they can afford more than they actually can, but I had that happen when I was looking for a house. Thankfully I had the sense to go with what I knew I could afford, and get a regular 30yr fixed mortgage, but a lot of banks were just telling people what they wanted to hear. That homes are a great investment and that they'll just keep going up in value, so it's no problem, and we've got this cool new type of mortgage so you can have affordable payments, etc.

It was fraud, fueled by greed, plain and simple, but a lot of people were too ignorant about finance and/or too greedy to care, so they signed for those stupid loans. Probably why Congress was so quick to bail out the banks too, as they were largely responsible for the laws that allowed it to happen. Of course they still caved to the banks afterwards and made sure to water down and stonewall all the reforms so that they banks stay fat and happy and still legally allowed to continue screwing with the economy.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Bodolza wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 17:00:Going by what's been written, I have to believe that Axis is either a troll, or just insane. No one can be this disconnected from reality and still be considered sane. Either way, I don't see any point in arguing. The sad thing being that his vote counts just as much as mine. Some days I think the Electoral College is a good idea.

His vote could count for a lot more than yours, depending on what state he lives in.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Axis wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 16:59:Only the die-hard libs won't admit a simple fact (of which you state you aren't):

When you force banks to offer loans to people who cannot pay them back, and the gov't say they'll back them ALL... KABOOM, welcome to America's bust.

Now this was caused by both both parties, but the vast majority of "what caused it" lies in the Gov't guaranteeing bust loans in first place. Read up on it, I did all that years ago.

Oh god... here we go with the "banks were forced to make lousy loans" crap. No, they weren't. Not only that, but the CRA only covered a fairly small percentage of the crappy loans that were made. Most of the stupid loans had nothing at all to do with it. Nor does it explain the fact that they were making as many loans as they possibly could, even foregoing underwriting to speed up the process.

Now you say it was caused by both parties, but you sure weren't saying that before. What lead to the ridiculous loans was the ability to package them into securitizations which they could then insure via credit default swaps, thereby giving the illusion of no downside. Thing like the CFMA of 2000 allowed AIG to essentially print money by selling insurance on these "AAA" securitized mortgages with no requirement for maintaining any sort of reserve that any real insurance company would have. So when the shit hit the fan, AIG couldn't cover even a fraction of the liability they took on, we see that the banks were lying about the "AAA" ratings, and the ratings agencies are worse than useless, and the whole thing comes crumbling down.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Axis wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 11:48:If anything, it's shitty politically correct loose laws that allow stupid shit like this to happen - which comes primarily from liberal legislation AKA largest housing bust in history.

Right. Largest housing bust in history, preceded by 10 years of Republican rule.

Axis wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 16:25:

eDave wrote on Oct 29, 2012, 16:16:Axis: "And UN control is exactly a liberal thing, you won't see any republicans advocating shit like that"

The actual article: "US officials say placing the Internet under UN control would undermine the freewheeling nature of cyberspace, which promotes open commerce and free expression, and could give a green light for some countries to crack down on dissidents."

The current administration is against it dumbass.

I don't give a shit what the current admin thinks, they were a hairs ass away from going all in with SOPA and PIPA, and there were dipshits from both sides supporting it. CONTROL of others is a liberal thing, unless your talking about controls that affect themselves.

Republicans have been pushing for crap like SOPA/PIPA for years as well, and these are hardly the only kinds of bullshit laws that both sides push for.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)